Georgia Aquarium Acquires And Displays First Manta Ray

The Georgia Aquarium is now home to the only manta ray on exhibit in the United States. The ray, named Nandi, was rescued from shark nets along the South African coast last year.

Most aquariums can't house a manta ray because of how large the animal gets -- up to 26 feet across and weighing about 6,000 pounds. The graceful animal is the largest of the rays.

But the Georgia Aquarium's 6.3 million-gallon salt water exhibit has plenty room for Nandi, who is about 9 feet from the tip of 1 wing to the other and still growing.

Aquarium spokesman Dave Santucci said Nandi had outgrown her home in South Africa, and the Georgia Aquarium jumped at the rare chance to exhibit a manta ray.

Nandi was released into the aquarium's enormous Ocean Voyager tank on Friday and has her official public debut today.

Manta rays are listed as a threatened species. The mammoth diamond-shaped animal has a black top and white bottom with wings that move gracefully up and down as they swim through the water.

Just three other countries house manta rays at aquariums: Japan, Spain and the Bahamas.

Source: Live5News.com

Photo credit: John Bazemore / AP

Here's the ultimate fish story

When Peter Hodge learned he had terminal motor neurone disease, he requested his remains be mixed in with the special groundbait he used to catch fish in his local river.

The 61-year-old, from Puriton, near Bridgewater in Somerset said he wanted to swim with his favorite fish in the spot where he spent 40 happy years angling.

After his death last month he was cremated in a wicker fishing basket coffin, and his ashes were mingled with 30lb of fish food.

"He wanted the fish to gobble him up so he could swim up and down the river after his death."

Source: Telegraph

A fishy story

Ready for the latest in spa pampering? Prepare to dunk your tootsies in a tank of water and let tiny carp nibble away.

Fish pedicures are creating something of a splash in the D.C. area, where a northern Virginia spa has been offering them for the past four months. John Ho, who runs the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon with his wife, Yvonne Le, said 5,000 people have taken the plunge so far.

The fish are called garra rufa but typically known as doctor fish. They were first used in Turkey and have become popular in some Asian countries.

Source: Boston.com

Amazing mass migration of Golden Rays

Sandra Critelli, an amateur photographer, stumbled across the biannual mass migration of thousands of Golden Rays gathering off the coast of Mexico while looking for whale sharks.


She said: "It was an unreal image, very difficult to describe. The surface of the water was covered by warm and different shades of gold and looked like a bed of autumn leaves gently moved by the wind."

More photos of this phenomenon at the Telegraph

Killer virus threatens fish in in Great Lakes

(Click photo for full-size)

When thousands of bloody, hemorrhaging fish recently turned up on the Lake Michigan shore south of Milwaukee, it confirmed the worst fears of scientists worried that an Ebola-like virus stalking Great Lakes fish would strike closer to Chicago.

Unlike many other diseases that tend to hit one or two types of fish, this viral strain has led to large fish kills involving more than 30 species, including valuable sport fish such as salmon, trout, walleye, muskie, bass and perch.

The infection, called viral hemorrhagic septicemia or VHS, doesn't threaten human health but could be devastating to the $4 billion commercial and sport fishing industry in the Great Lakes.

Viral hemorrhagic septicemia is an invasive species. The virus tends to be more destructive and pervasive here than in the lakes and rivers of Europe where it originated, but it's difficult to predict how it will affect Great Lakes species in the long term.

Some fish can resist the virus, but they can still spread it through urine and other fluids. Those that get sick become listless and ultimately bleed to death.

Pregnant for Father's Day

In the weedy sea dragon family it's the dads that carry the eggs, and this one is pregnant for only the third time ever at a U.S. aquarium, Georgia Aquarium officials said.

The sea dragon has about 70 fertilized eggs — which look like small red grapes — attached to his tail. He is expected to give birth in early to mid-July.

Sea dragons, sea horses and pipe fish are the only species where the male carries the eggs.

Source: Newsvine

China prepares for the Olympics in their own cruel way

A cute little cartoon fish is one of the mascots for the Beijing Olympics.

But this sick tourist trinket shows a shocking contempt for the creatures – with a live goldfish stuffed into a tiny plastic bag on a keyring.

The bag is sealed so there is only enough oxygen to last for a few hours at the most. Then the goldfish will simply suffocate.

The keyrings – aimed predominantly at children – are already selling fast in markets in Qingdao, the city that will host the sailing events for this summer’s Games.

(via Critter News)

Sturgeon having a ball in Columbia River

When sonar surveys spotted a vast pile of rubble in the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam late last winter, officials suddenly worried part of the dam structure was eroding into the river.

What they found below the spillways in February was not a giant pile of rock at all, but a humongous pile of thousands upon thousands of sturgeon - some of them 14 feet long or longer - lounging together in frigid water at the bottom of the river.

The mountain of white sturgeon contained around 60,000 fish, according to a crude estimate by Michael Parsley, a research fisheries biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Columbia River Research Laboratory in Cook, Wash. He described that estimate as "probably conservative."

It was an aquatic phenomenon nobody had ever seen at such a monstrous scale, offering a startling glimpse into the life of the Columbia's largest and most ancient fish.

Source: Oregon Live
Photo: Columbia River Trophy Sturgeon Fishing

Flying fish

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Fish sounds

I never knew fish made sounds. It's hard to believe that they do, but when you think about it, why not? Most other animals make noises, so why not fish?

In "Run Noisy, Run Deep," the New York Times samples of some of the sounds made by five species of fish.


My favorite is the clownfish which are prolific "singers" that produce a wide variety of sounds, described as "chirps" and "pops" in both reproductive and agonistic behavioral contexts. Clownfish sounds were recorded as early as 1930, but it was just recently that scientists discovered the unusual ligament that allows this fish to pull its jaws together quickly to produce the sounds.

The accompanying article, "What’s Making That Awful Racket? Surprisingly, It May Be Fish," tells an interesting story about Cape Coral, FL, where residents were pushing the City Council to pay an engineering firm more than $47,000 to eliminate the nightly noise reverberating through their homes.

James Locascio, a doctoral student in marine science at the University of South Florida, rescued the city from financial folly.

He explained that at 100 to 500 hertz, black drum mating calls travel at a low enough frequency and long enough wavelength to carry through sea walls, into the ground and through the construction of waterfront homes like the throbbing beat in a passing car.

How cool.

Mystery creature in Utah pond

When a pond in Brigham City, Utah, froze over, over 4,000 fish turned up dead - caused either due to the pond being poisoned or lack of oxygen due to the thick ice. The strange, fanged creature was found amid the carp and goldfish which the pond had been stocked with.

Biologists said they are not sure what the creature is and that it could be a type of trout whose tissue decomposed rapidly, making its teeth more prominent.

Aquatic biologists said if they can't figure it out, they'll let the fish decompose fully and then examine the bone structure to determine the species.

Source: Local6.com

via: A Fiend's Folio

Seahorses in London

Short-snouted seahorses have set up residence in the recovering River Thames, which had been declared biologically dead in the 1950s. Various groups have worked to rehabilitate the river for the past two decades. Seals, dolphins, salmon, and sea lampreys have also recently been seen swimming in the healthier river.

via: National Geographic

8-Foot Giant Catfish Caught in Cambodia

Captured just before midnight on November 13 by fishers in Cambodia, this Mekong giant catfish is 8 feet long (2.4 meters long) ands weighs 450 pounds (204 kilograms).

Giant catfish were once plentiful throughout Southeast Asia's Mekong River watershed, including the Tonle Sap River—home of the fish in these exclusive pictures taken near Phnom Penh.

In the last century the Mekong giant catfish population has declined by 95 to 99 percent, scientists say. Only a few hundred adult giant catfish may remain.

After collecting data on the fish, it was released unharmed.

Chicago fish are a threat in Japan

In 1960, the mayor of Chicago, Richard J Daley, presented Emperor Akihito (then Crown Prince) with a fish. It was hoped that the Japanese would learn to love bluegill for dinner as much as Chicagoans do.

But, as the Guardian Unlimited reports, the bluegill fish is possibly the most reviled creature in Japan. The fish brought back by the emperor were donated to research centers, but many escaped to wipe out the royal bitterling and bring other native species to the brink of extinction. They have infested waterways across Japan, including the moat of the imperial palace in Tokyo.

Though considered a delicacy in Illinois and other parts of the US, the bluegill has struggled to find favor among Japanese diners. A multimillion-yen campaign to turn them into fertilizer and chicken feed has had limited success.

Photo credit

Fish in trees

Scientists have discovered that the mangrove killifish spends several months of every year out of the water and living inside trees.

Hidden away inside rotten branches and trunks, the remarkable creatures temporarily alter their biological makeup so they can breathe air.

Biologists studying the killifish say they astonished it can cope for so long out of its natural habitat.

The discovery, along with its ability to breed without a mate, must make the mangrove killifish, Rivulus marmoratus Poey, one of the oddest fish known to man.

Around two inches long, they normally live in muddy pools and the flooded burrows of crabs in the mangrove swamps of Florida, Latin American and Caribbean.

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Video: Salmon dance

Catchy tune (NSFW language)

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Rare albino ratfish caught in Washington

A ghostly, mutant ratfish caught off Whidbey Island in Washington state is the only completely albino fish ever seen by both the curator of the University of Washington's 7.2 million-specimen fish collection and a fish and wildlife biologist with more than 20 years of sampling fish in Puget Sound.

This fish was almost pure white with a crystalline layer near the surface of its skin that gave it a silvery sheen.

The foot-long female may have been 2 or 3 years old, making her a teenager in the ratfish world. She was caught this summer in about 200 feet of water during a UW research project examining the food web in Hood Canal and Puget Sound.

(via)

Those New Yorkers are fearless!

A group of sunbathers first spotted the shark Saturday morning when it splashed out of the surf near Beach 109th St in New York.

Rather than flee, the beachgoers pushed the shark back into the ocean. For several hours, the 5-foot thresher shark could be seen swimming just offshore.

Hans Walters, a shark researcher and supervisor at the New York Aquarium, said he was impressed by the way New Yorkers responded to the shark sighting.

"Sharks get a lot of bad press," he said. "But the public that was at the beach said, 'Hey, we gotta help this animal,' rather than, 'Hey, it's a shark. Let's kill it.'"

"It's just sad the shark didn't live." (The dead shark washed ashore around 6 a.m. near Beach 113th St. on Sunday.)

The Amazing gooey duck

Geoduck - pronounced gooey duck - is a species of large saltwater clam. Other nick names for geoduck are elephant trunk clam and king clam.

The Geoduck is the largest burrowing clam in the world, on average they weigh about three pounds. The largest one on record weighed in at a massive 15 pounds and was 2 meters in length. The amazing thing about these saltwater clams is that they have a life expectancy of about 146 years - but the oldest one on record lived for 160 years - this has to be one of the longest living organisms throughout the Animal Kingdom.

See the giant, phallic & revered geoduck clam of Puget Sound, Washington:
Video: 3 Feet Under - Digging Deep for the Geoduck

Is that a geoduck in your pocket?
Video: Cooking the gooey duck

(Several years ago, we saw these in a tank in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco's China Town. They are very bizarre looking! Being very adventurous that evening, we had some for dinner. They were thinly sliced and were prepared with vegetables in a yellowish sauce. )

Wolf Fish

The Wolf Fish is a powerful, elongated fish with a dorsal fin extending the whole length of its body. Its fearsome set of teeth are used for smashing up shellfish and sea urchins and the whole of the inside of the mouth is made up of grinding molars. Caught commercially and marketed in the north of Britain as Scotch Halibut and Scarborough Woof, the flesh is excellent quality. However, it is always sold skinned and beheaded for obvious reasons. The skin can be turned into a type of leather and is used for making small personal items such as wallets and purses.